Nature Never Hurries

Nature Never Hurries. Atom by Atom, Little by Little She Achieves Her Work. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

[raccoon-central]

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Raccoon

Greg Murray

[pnwander]

[pnwander]

peanut thief shoulder-deep in a squirrel hole.

[pnwander]

[versaversa]

[earthanthem]

(via Raccoons)

[sitting-on-me-bum]

They may look cute and cuddly, but raccoons are formidable, omnivorous (and opportunistic) North American predators.

© Janet Haas

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Last orders … a raccoon drinks from a plastic cup left by visitors to the waterfront in Panama City, Panama

Martin Bernetti

[sitting-on-me-bum]

A raccoon, soaked by a recent rain, feeds in the Marthaville habitat management area in Petrolia, Ontario.

Reece Buruma

The Royal Canadian Geographical Society

Nature Photography Competition

[todaysbird]

the egyptian vulture is a small vulture found from the iberian peninsula to north africa, west asia and india. like many vultures, a large portion of their diet consists of carrion - however, they are opportunistic feeders that eat a variety of found foods, and willing hunters. they predate on small mammals, birds, and reptiles, and are known for their love of feeding on the eggs of other birds. large, thick-shelled eggs are difficult for the vultures to open, and they have been recorded using tools to access the inside of the egg, such as dropping rocks onto the eggs to crack them open. egyptian vultures have also been recorded using tools in other ways - they use twigs in order to roll up found wool to bring back for use in their nests. adult birds’ plumage is white overall, with black flight feathers. they also have notable bright yellow facial skin, which is bare as in other vultures. wild birds often appear brown or rusty in color from contact with iron-rich soil. the egyptian vulture is currently considered endangered by the IUCN. with few natural predators for adult birds, most of the threats to wild populations are human-influenced, such as poisonings (both accidental and intentional), hunting, pesticide accumulation and collisions with power lines.

photos sourced from the Macaulay Library

[sitting-on-me-bum]

A white-rumped vulture in Nepal

Prasan Shrestha

[sitting-on-me-bum]

A baby vulture at a New York zoo is fed by hand puppet at the Bronx zoo, New York, US, in March. King vultures can neglect their chicks, so hand-feeding is necessary to ensure the baby survives, but staff disguise themselves to ensure the birds don’t bond with their human carers

Terria Clay

Rod Hull Memorial prize

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Vultures feed on carcasses at an observation station built specially for the purpose in Bolu, Turkey. Carcasses are placed at the station each day at dawn, attracting vultures and other scavenger birds, who in turn attract local nature enthusiasts and photographers

Anadolu

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Vultures are a conservation success story in South Asia. The birds were almost wiped out in the late 1990s, losing nearly 99% of the population due to Diclofenac, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), which was used to treat cattle. As nature’s cleaners of animal carcases, their absence caused a huge spike in cases of rabies.

Today, vulture populations are slowly rebounding. This beautiful yellow fellow is an old-world Egyptian vulture. Did you know “new world” and “old world” vultures are not closely related? The family Accipitridae is primarily found in Africa, Europe and Asia. New World vultures of the family Cathartidae are native to the Americas.

Sanjeev Marskole.

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Griffon vulture standing in a grassland of Dauphiné Alps.

© Luca Melcarne.

[sitting-on-me-bum]

The Andean condor is a South American New World vulture.

Getty